Post by warehamgas on Jun 15, 2019 9:33:04 GMT

Should take a lot of confidence from this win. I thought the WI attack looked as good as anything I’ve seen so far upto that match. England blew them away without Roy, Morgan. Joe Root is an exceptional player with a great temperament in all forms. Who’d have thought he’d get 2 c and b? And he bats so sensibly although the WI bowlers on this occasion bowled exactly where he wanted them to bowl.

Post by chewbacca on Jun 17, 2019 10:28:43 GMT

Went to South Africa - Afghanistan, I hope the Saffers go home as quickly as possible. One of the most boring chases ever, you'd have thought they'd have gone hard to get their NRR up. Probably the worst day of cricket I've had this summer.

Post by irishrover on Jun 17, 2019 10:46:51 GMT

Went to South Africa - Afghanistan, I hope the Saffers go home as quickly as possible. One of the most boring chases ever, you'd have thought they'd have gone hard to get their NRR up. Probably the worst day of cricket I've had this summer.

Yes, bad luck there. Worst game of the tournament so far by a distance. SA are indeed deeply uninspiring.

Post by chewbacca on Jun 17, 2019 11:17:29 GMT

Went to South Africa - Afghanistan, I hope the Saffers go home as quickly as possible. One of the most boring chases ever, you'd have thought they'd have gone hard to get their NRR up. Probably the worst day of cricket I've had this summer.

Yes, bad luck there. Worst game of the tournament so far by a distance. SA are indeed deeply uninspiring.

What I will say, there was a lovely moment by Imran Tahir where he was fielding on the boundary signing bats. The over ended and he had to move, one lad was left signature less so Tahir gave him his cap.

Post by irishrover on Jun 17, 2019 11:21:39 GMT

Yes, bad luck there. Worst game of the tournament so far by a distance. SA are indeed deeply uninspiring.

What I will say, there was a lovely moment by Imran Tahir where he was fielding on the boundary signing bats. The over ended and he had to move, one lad was left signature less so Tahir gave him his cap.

Yeah Tahir seems like a good guy. Came to international cricket very late and appears to be appreciating every single moment of it.

Post by warehamgas on Jun 17, 2019 11:27:27 GMT

I made the point earlier about my surprise about winning the toss and putting the opposition in. I’m sat here watching WI v Bangladesh at Taunton and the stats are:... this is the 23rd match and of those, 17 times the team winning the toss has put the opposition in (incl today)... of the previous 16 games, only 6 wins for the team winning the toss and putting teams in, 9 losses and 1 no result. Perhaps they need to weather the first ten overs get to something like 50-1 then bat sensibly to get around 320. Captains misreading the pitch?

Post by irishrover on Jun 17, 2019 11:54:55 GMT

I made the point earlier about my surprise about winning the toss and putting the opposition in. I’m sat here watching WI v Bangladesh at Taunton and the stats are:... this is the 23rd match and of those, 17 times the team winning the toss has put the opposition in (incl today)... of the previous 16 games, only 6 wins for the team winning the toss and putting teams in, 9 losses and 1 no result. Perhaps they need to weather the first ten overs get to something like 50-1 then bat sensibly to get around 320. Captains misreading the pitch?

I think it may be more negative than that. I'm not sure anyone wants to be the Captain who wins the toss and bats only to watch it hoop round corners while his side gets skittled. A function of 10.30 starts more than anything. We haven't really seen a big chasing success yet. A few teams have threatened but then fallen away at the end.

Post by warehamgas on Jun 19, 2019 9:54:49 GMT

What a performance from Morgan yesterday, it was a great watch even if it was just on TV. He will get all the plaudits deservedly but Bairstow and Root had already made sure we would likely get a big score and I still think Root and his consistency will be as important as Morgan and Buttler. I guess after that no one will be bowling spin against England and Morgan. We can expect a fast barrage from Australia for sure and India’s medium pacers not bowling in the slot. It was a great hours watching that was for sure.

Post by irishrover on Jun 20, 2019 22:37:07 GMT

What a performance from Morgan yesterday, it was a great watch even if it was just on TV. He will get all the plaudits deservedly but Bairstow and Root had already made sure we would likely get a big score and I still think Root and his consistency will be as important as Morgan and Buttler. I guess after that no one will be bowling spin against England and Morgan. We can expect a fast barrage from Australia for sure and India’s medium pacers not bowling in the slot. It was a great hours watching that was for sure.

I was there!

It was magnificent. The truth is that Afghanistan actually bowled quite well in the main and until the last 20 Overs we'd been quite circumspect and happy just to make sure we batted to put a 300+ score on the board. Then Morgan went ballistic! If the Afghan had been merely average, as opposed to utterly abysmal, they may even have been able to put us under a bit of pressure early on. Instead the platform was left for Morgan to completely destroy the bowling in a way that looked like someone who had been bought in as a ringer in a club game! Early on he actually looked very awkward and vulnerable. There were mumblings about how maybe he should have been resting his back. But then he was the recepient of a free hit which he duly smashed out of the ground and never looked back.

If you'd told me Old Trafford would be the ground on which a player hit the most number of 6s in an international game and the world record for maximums in a match would also go I'd have thought you'd have gone a bit round the twist. OT is a big ground and normally it's something of a graveyard for big hitting batsmen but it was a flying out of there all day from both sides. Really strange to see.

I've done pretty well this week as the day after I was also at the NZ v SA game at Edgbaston which was the complete opposite sort of game - a low scoring squeaker that swumg one way and then the other. Those kind of even low scoring games are definitely my favourite type of ODI and they're becoming increasingly rare. But I just think it gets brilliantly tense when there's so much value on every run and wicket. You don't get it very often but when you do its special. I'm convinced SA would have won if they'd had an extra spinner in their side but they bowled brilliantly to almost defend 241. Matched only by Williamson's superbly timed pressure knock. Just a superb 100 - he's one of those people who always seems to get a score when I watch him live. He has such amazing hands and can play it so late. People will remember the 6 he hit in the last over to basically win it but it was actually the delicate 4 he hit off the last ball of the previous over which was the special moment that swung it decisively towards New Zealand. It was a glorious shot of a well executed slower ball. Cricket at its best really.

Having watched Root and Williamson live and seen Kohli's knock on the TV from Sunday I do wonder if the present rules make scoring runs just a bit easy for the real superstars though. On all 3 occasions those players got to 50 without really needing to work for them or up the tempo. Maybe that's the point but it seems to me that when a batsmen of that quality survives the first 10 balls of an ODI innings then they're probably getting at least a half century.

Post by warehamgas on Jun 20, 2019 23:16:56 GMT

Lucky you irish.We’ve had some good matches this week. WI v Bangladesh, SA v NZ and for different reasons Eng v Afghanistan. I think it’s really set the competition alive. Amongst it all I think the top 4 have become very clear, NZ, Aus, India and England. If they don’t qualify I will be surprised. They might have qualified anyway but the schedule seemed to let NZ have some easy early matches and their match against India rained off although the really big matches are all to come. Eng v India, Aus and NZ, Aus v NZ.

Post by irishrover on Jun 21, 2019 15:09:57 GMT

Lucky you irish.We’ve had some good matches this week. WI v Bangladesh, SA v NZ and for different reasons Eng v Afghanistan. I think it’s really set the competition alive. Amongst it all I think the top 4 have become very clear, NZ, Aus, India and England. If they don’t qualify I will be surprised. They might have qualified anyway but the schedule seemed to let NZ have some easy early matches and their match against India rained off although the really big matches are all to come. Eng v India, Aus and NZ, Aus v NZ.

Yes - it's a shame that Bangladesh let the Aussies get away from them yesterday. It was a game effort to try and chase it down but they'd clearly given away too many. Pity as I thought they were more than capable of winning that game and keeping the last 4 qualification race at least vaguely interesting. We're now faced with the downside of this format wth the possibility of quite a lot of dead games over the next week or so.

Having said that England are doing their best to create interest by struggling against Sri Lanka right now although they should still get over the line fairly comfortably from here.

Post by jackthegas on Jun 21, 2019 16:37:34 GMT

Not the kind of chase normally associated with sides that go on and win world cups.

They've lost every clutch moment in this innings so far, from losing the early wicket, to root and buttler getting out when they brought back Malinga for what felt like a final throw of the dice, to moeen's utterly stupid, brainless shot.

We might need to win 2 of our last 3 against India, Australia and New Zealand to qualify for the semis at this rate!

Post by jackthegas on Jun 21, 2019 17:18:26 GMT

That stokes innings very much demonstrates the stupidity of some of the shots played by the lower, middle order.

I've played in teams that have batting right down to 10 or 11. All very well and good on paper but it can lead to a tendancy for the top order to place too low a price on their wicket. The someone else will finish it mentality. Some of our all-rounders do not look like the kind of savvy cricketers who might get you over the line in a tight one. It's one of the reasons I like Tom Curran.

Depending on the outcome of the windies v new Zealand game on Sunday, England could find themselves under a lot of pressure next week.

Post by warehamgas on Jun 24, 2019 8:33:02 GMT

Well England have a bit of a fight on their hands now to qualify. I still think they will but in their two losses, against Pakistan they batted well but bowled and fielded poorly and against SL they bowled well but batted poorly. Now they have to work hard and not take anything for granted. Against SL they should have got over the line but on this occasion their mid to lower order didn’t produce as they normally do. Now it’s down to the way they play on the day v India, Aus and NZ. All three are good teams but without showing any disrespect to NZ, they are very dependent on Kane Williamson and get him out, which no one has been able to do it will be interesting who steps up. He is fast becoming the player of the tournament and that’s saying something with the innings of lots of players.

Post by jackthegas on Jun 25, 2019 15:00:28 GMT

Well. This is all going south very quickly for England. It's like the last 4 years haven't happened! I know batting has been trickier during the World Cup than it has been during the build up but our inability to chase does not paint our mental fortitude in a good light. I know it's a World Cup but at this stage, there are (were?) second chances so it's not that different to a bilateral series.

We look much more likely to ruin our net run rate at this stage than win the game!

Post by warehamgas on Jun 25, 2019 16:09:32 GMT

Yes jack agree. But am a bit puzzled about some of the decisions England have made. Batting second is harder and whilst the 10.30 starts makes the first few overs difficult England have lost when they’ve put the opposition in. Bat through the first ten overs and set anything over 290 and it’s likely to be a winning score. I thought they bottled it this morning when electing to bowl. Finch certainly wasn’t bothered about it.

Post by jackthegas on Jun 30, 2019 21:02:37 GMT

England got to a very good 337-7 after being on target for 400 at one stage, Roy and Bairstow smashed it opening with 160 from 22 overs.

India's Rohit and Kohli responded well but the team ultimately struggled to a total of 306-5 leaving England victors by 31 runs.

We saved our necks by a good battle against one of the favourites, all we have to do now is beat NZ, sounds easy doesn't it.

We didn't get the rub of the green against Australia but I think we did today. Both Roy and Bairstow lived a bit of a charmed life early on. Good players tend to capitalise when they have a let off though, as Rohit Sharma did. Players like Vince always leave you feeling that another chance is just around the corner.

Lots of positives for England today. Stokes is in fabulous form, Woakes is back to his best, Plunkett looks nailed on to play the rest of the tournament and Archer looked fit enough. Moreover, the weather seems to have improved the pitches!

Root had an off day, but winning without him contributing much is probably a good thing in itself. Bit worried about Morgan. Not just getting out to another short ball but he looked flappy before that and has been unusually testy this week. I think he handled the bowlers well know though. Rashid seems to be struggling with his shoulder, but it hasn't been an easy tournament for the spinners in general.

Shame Afghanistan couldn't finish the job yesterday (Gulbadin almost wholly culpable for letting that one slip away) but I think Bangladesh will give Pakistan a good game if England can't get past New Zealand.

I still think it's hard to pick a winner. India look overly reliant on their top order (hence the cautious approach today), New Zealand have scraped by a couple of teams thanks to the brilliance of Williamson and Australia look brilliant if 280 - 300 is par. If the weather improves the pitches and 330 - 350 becomes par again then do they have enough support bowling and enough hitting power? I think they are my favourites but it's not clear cut. Pakistan can't field for toffee, are heavily reliant on Babar Azam with the bat and England look more likely to chase 350 than 250.

I'm sure it's great fun for a neutral but for an Englishman who's first experience of a world cup was the 99 debacle, I could barely watch today!

Post by warehamgas on Jun 30, 2019 22:27:26 GMT

It was a good watch today and England fully deserved their win. Can’t argue with what you’ve said jack, the pressure is beginning to get to everyone, Morgan, Kohli (his moan about the boundaries) esp now we’re getting to the business end of the competition. When it comes to pressure I think Aaron Finch will deal with it very well. Watched him a lot in the BB last winter and he dragged Melbourne back from defeat on a few occasions and he seems to be doing well dealing with the reintroduction of Warner and Smith into the Oz team, he’s a very good captain.I think England still have a good chance of winning it. Their team is still one of the strongest, if not the strongest in most departments, and in Stokes, Plunkett, Root, Roy and Bairstow we have players in form and match winners in Morgan and Buttler. I think Australia will do well but their batting isn’t as strong and get rid of Warner, Finch and Smith and they struggle. But Starc is such a great bowler Finch will use his 10 overs very carefully. New Zealand are a very good 11 but again get Williamson out they will struggle for anything over 300.As the weather improves, batting will become easier and I would think a total of 400 is likely to be achieved before the end and if that happens England are as likely as anyone to do that with their batting.Whatever, some good matches to come this week.

On a more domestic note, I’m looking forward to seeing Babur Azam in a Somerset team for the T20, will make us a bit stronger in the batting department.